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mossTechnician

1,214 karmajoined 2 yıl önce

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Dell admits consumers don't care about AI PCs

pcgamer.com
580 points·by mossTechnician·6 ay önce·405 comments

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mossTechnician
·21 saat önce·discuss
Conversion therapy advocates have disproportionate influence in book banning, for example. We know that's a form of torture.
mossTechnician
·21 saat önce·discuss
I'm optimistic, because when it comes to AI generated music, is there anything really to embrace? The only distinct marks of I can think of is

#1, it was made from an amalgam of previous music, and

#2, there is no person attached to it.

To me, quality #1 makes the music sound uninspired and prompt little response from the listener[0], but even if interest arose (even through an act of generational rebellion!) what would the music fan be able to gather about the band - their history, evolution, etc?

[0]: I just read, and generally agree with, https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art
mossTechnician
·3 gün önce·discuss
The specific examples I provided included domestic abuse; most sexual abuse is done by a family member. I hope it's not contentious to say that parental control should not be as authoritarian as to allow that, let alone suppress the victim's knowledge of what it is.
mossTechnician
·4 gün önce·discuss
Is it really that cut and dry? A technically competent person might easily access a book while living in an authoritarian country, while someone who grows up in an authoritarian family in a "free" country might be prevented from reading a book both at home and at the school where their parents lobbied to ban the book. (It's quite hard to access suppressed information if you lack the knowledge it exists in the first place.)
mossTechnician
·4 gün önce·discuss
I don't understand the scare quotes: per my previous reply, is a ban not a ban regardless of who does it? Maus has nudity and curse words; that's why it was banned in Tennessee. 1984 has multiple sex scenes - the well-funded Christian publication PluggedIn[0] rates it 18+.

Two things can be true at the same time: a book can be both banned in one place, and used to promote someone's brand in another. Somebody in a deeply repressive and abusive home will not have a better or worse life if Dua Lipa did not exist.

[0]: https://www.pluggedin.com/book-reviews/1984/
mossTechnician
·4 gün önce·discuss
Banning a book in a school district still signifies a form of authoritarianism. If someone is prevented from reading Maus[0] (or finding out they are in a cult, or a victim of domestic abuse), what is the effective difference to them between an authoritarian censoring it at the national level or the local one?

[0]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/holocaust-novel-maus-banne...
mossTechnician
·4 gün önce·discuss
Can you list some of these books you want removed from school libraries, along with why?
mossTechnician
·16 gün önce·discuss
I am wholeheartedly against identity verification, especially when it comes to giving up privacy. And I hope these "think of the children" arguments can be pushed back at from multiple angles. If the danger is real, then by the time a child is online, 4 out of 5 in them in Australia can apparently access social media anyway. So even if everyone's privacy was somehow an acceptable price to pay, these requirements do nothing.
mossTechnician
·16 gün önce·discuss
I appreciate the wealth of technical solutions that don't violate privacy, but isn't this overlooking an important point: that children don't need to be connected to the Internet at all times from such an early age? Many internet and cell phone providers seem to take it for granted that children must be online, which is already a net loss for their privacy as they mature.
mossTechnician
·17 gün önce·discuss
> LeCun framed AI as an infrastructure-level platform that will soon mediate "all of our interaction with the digital world with information more generally"

This doesn't read as revolutionary, it reads as accepting a premise without explaining how and why it will and must be the case.

Some of my favorite parts of the internet - wikis and forums and blogs - are special to me because there is no procedurally generated mediator between me and the information. I don't want a summary that was never intended by the author. I don't want the rough edges shaved off every blog until they all sound like they were written with an identical voice. Maybe some people would like that some of the time, but all?
mossTechnician
·18 gün önce·discuss
The structure here is confusing me too. I gather from the Wiki that at the top is the Mozilla Project, described as a parent of everything Mozilla does (including the Mozilla Foundation). One level lower, we have the Foundation. And the new Mozilla.org is "within [its] umbrella".

I don't understand why the responsibilities apparently delegated to Mozilla.org wouldn't be more appropriate for one of its parent entities, which already exist.
mossTechnician
·geçen ay·discuss
> 77 percent of low-income households can cover an unexpected $400 expense, though many must cover it with disposable income or short-term credit... 43 percent of low-income households unable to weather small expense shocks might be able to pay them with access to additional credit.

I'm not sure if credit is the ideal solution, nor if additional credit would be beneficial.
mossTechnician
·geçen ay·discuss
How does that go for Americans who cannot afford to pay for a $400 surprise expense out of pocket?

https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/sheddata...
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
noai.duckduckgo.com probably receives much less traffic than the main domain, which enjoys placement in many prominent browsers (and offers AI overviews by default, although they are far smaller and less likely to appear than on Google). It would be much more interesting to see absolute numbers... in the context of the main site.
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. A similar section offers an apparently contradictory take with similar language:

> A smart executive welcomes the union, signs a generous contract, and uses the goodwill to consolidate authority for the difficult AI-era decisions ahead. That is the textbook play. Meehan and her team chose the opposite. They picked a fight.

The "standard tech playbook" fires union organizers, but a "textbook play" welcomes them?
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
Confusingly, that page only provides the changes to the Google Chromium source that allows their UI to run. (I'm not sure it would be easy to discern this without already knowing the source is not fully open.)

https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-sou...
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
That must be somewhat significant, because after that percent, Apple will start showing "Your battery’s health is significantly degraded" warnings.
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
Which flagship phones with replaceable batteries can customers buy?

Samsung was the last major brand in the US to have one, and they made the choice to remove it.
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
Many flagship phones promise 7 years of security updates now. 3-4 years means the battery will only last for half that time, and heavy users (1 cycle per day) will hit that quota in under 2.75 years.
mossTechnician
·2 ay önce·discuss
> Cameras are free speech... individuals, companies, and communities should be at liberty to hire surveillance tech to protect their persons and their property.

At scale, corporate surveillance can effectively intermingle with, and/or become indistinguishable from, state surveillance. We see that happening today: why wiretap when Palantir exists?

Cameras may be speech, but surveillance has a chilling effect against it.